ARBA MINCH UNIVERSITY

INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
DEPARTMENT OF CIVIL ENGINEERING
RESEARCH PROPOSAL

ON
Cause of Delay in Building Construction Projects in Bangladesh
BY

Mengstab Ashenafi
ID No PEAMIT/011/11
CoTM Weekend Program

Summated to Alemayehu Chufama (Dr.)

October 16, 2023
Arba Minch Ethiopia .

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Table of Contents
ABSTRACT....................................................................................................................................................ii
1. INTRODUCTION.......................................................................................................................................1
1.1. Problem Statement...........................................................................................................................1
1.2. Objective of The Study......................................................................................................................1
1.2.1. General Objective.....................................................................................................................1
1.2.2. Specific Objective.......................................................................................................................1
2. LITERATURE REVIEW................................................................................................................................2
3. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY....................................................................................................................3
3.1. Method of Data Analysis..................................................................................................................4
4. BUDGET BREAK DOWN AND OPERATIONAL CALENDAR..........................................................................6
4.1. Budget break down..........................................................................................................................6
4.2. Operational Calendar........................................................................................................................7
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................................8

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ABSTRACT
Construction delay is a common problem worldwide, which is considered as one of the main
reasons for project failure. Bangladesh construction industry is no exception. This study will
investigates the main causes of delay in large building construction projects in Bangladesh. A
questionnaire survey will conduct to determine the causes of delay from owners, consultants, and
contractors of large building construction projects. About 70 respondents will participate in the
survey. Using the importance index analysis, the study will identify 10 most important causes of
delay from a list of different causes. This research will use Kruskal-Wallis test to indicates the
existences or not existence of significant variation among the three group of respondents, i.e
owners, consultants and contractors.

Keywords: Construction Delay, Bangladesh, Developing Countries, Important Index

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1. INTRODUCTION
Construction project delay can be defined by as “the time overrun either beyond completion date
specified in a contract, or beyond the date that the parties agreed upon for delivery of a project”
[1]. It has significant consequences as it would affect project performance [2]. For project
owners, delay means loss of revenue; as for contractors it means loss of money [3]. Delay also
creates caustic situation between owner and contractor such as dispute, ligation, arbitration, and
some time total abandonment of the project [3; 4; 5].

Bangladesh is a developing country with high investment in construction industry, particularly

commercial, residential, and multipurpose building projects etc., Almost 2.4 million people are
working in this industry, which contributes about 20% to the national GDP [6].

1.1. Problem Statement

In Bangladesh, delay in delivering projects has serious drawback in this industry [3]. However,
very few researches have been conducted to analyze the causes of delay in construction projects
in Bangladesh. Salam et al. [7] studied the causes of delay, but focused in residential projects in
Bangladesh. Ahsan and Gunawan [8] focused on identifying the factors of time and cost
performance in infrastructure development projects funded by Asian Development Bank (ADB)
in several Asian countries including Bangladesh. Therefore, this paper aims to identify the main
causes of delay of building construction projects in Bangladesh, and the important causes of
delay in large building projects.

1.2. Objective of The Study

1.2.1. General Objective
The general objective of the research is to investigate the main cause of delay in building
construction project in Bangladesh.

1.2.2. Specific Objective

The study has the following specific objectives:

1. To provide a comprehensive review of sources and characteristics of factors for delay

typically found in building construction projects;
2. Analysis the collected data by Kruskal-Wallis test method

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3. To identify the important factors based on analysis result from numbers of factors in
building construction .

2. LITERATURE REVIEW
Construction industry is a multi-party business and numerous complexities turned it high-risk
trade sector [9]. This industry deals with various contract documents to ensure all parties
agreement. The attributes of construction delay are well known but its fundamental factors and
subsequent impacts are not understood by the experts. For this reason, many construction
projects in different parts of the world are suffering by schedule overrun which subsequently
increases the project cost and reduces profit [9; 10; 11]. Delay may start from feasibility study
and end by the delivery of the project. The key players, i.e. owner, A/E or consultant, and
contractor, are involved in schedule overrun of construction projects [1; 12; 13; 14].

Study by Assaf and Al-Hejji [1] identified 73 causes of delay in construction project of the
Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia. They include: shortage of labors, unqualified work-force,
inadequate contractor’s experience, difficulties in financing project by contractor, ineffective
planning and scheduling of project by contractor, low productivity of labors, delay in progress
payments by owner etc. are noteworthy.

Another study by Fugar and Ayakwah-baah [15] identified 32 factors of delay in building
construction projects in Ghana. They include: monthly payments difficulties, poor estimation of
project time and cost, incompetent site management, material shortage etc. ere Study by Long et
al. [16] on large construction projects in Vietnam identified 62 causes of delay, which were
grouped into four categories, ie organizational, project attributes, coordination, and
environmental”.

Study by Mohammed and Isah [17] on the causes of delay in construction projects in Nigeria
identified 43 causes of delay frequently encountered in Nigerian construction industry. Among
those, inappropriate planning, lack of communication, errors in design, shortage of resources
supply etc. were top ranked factors, to lengthen the project schedule. After reviewing various
literatures, this study identified 109 causes of delay, which are group into nine major factors:
financial; owner; contactor; consultant; manpower and resources; project; managerial; rules and
regulation; and environment.

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3. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
This study will review a good article on causes of delay in construction projects published in
various technical journals. Based on the literature review, a survey questionnaire will design for
this study. The questionnaire will have two measures, i.e. frequency and severity of the causes of
delay. Both frequency and severity will defined in various categories by 1 to 4 point scale. In
frequency, respondents will ask whether the factor of delay is found in rare, sometimes, often, or
always, which are related to 1, 2, 3, and 4 respectively. On the other hand, severity of the delay
factors will also ask to the respondents in terms of little, moderate, great, or extreme and the
point scale is similar to that of frequency (i.e. 1 to 4).

For this study, Sylhet, the north eastern part of Bangladesh will select as the study area where the
trend of population growth is very high (i.e. 8.25%) and 41% buildings will be construct in last
10 years [18]. Accordingly, the construction rate of building projects in Sylhet region is very
high and it needs greater concern about the construction management system. Approximately 45
consultants or A/E farms, and 100 contactors (all categories) are working for design, and
construction of building projects in Sylhet (reported by Public Works Department, Sylhet,
Bangladesh).

Among first class, second class, and third class contractors according to their organization size
and funding capacity, only the first class contractors who have 5 years or more experience to
develop large buildings, will consult for this interview survey. The survey will conduct with 20
professional consultants and 30 contractors. The list of developers/owners will not found in the
corresponding government offices. 20 owners will interview for this study, where many of them
are repeated builders and few of them are first time builders. Since the survey will carry out
among the sample of the respondents, thus, it is necessary to check the sample size whether it is
statistically sufficient to take inference.

A pilot survey will conduct by taking interview with 10 experienced engineers to select most
relevant causes of delay in Bangladeshi construction projects. Following the pilot survey, some
factors will delete and few will add. Finally, a new questionnaire consists of 79 factors of delay
will develop for the survey.

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3.1. Method of Data Analysis
The data will analyze by four methods, which are ranking and categorizing of the causes of
delay by frequency and severity indices; classifying the importance of the causes by color
matrix; establishing the relationship among the parties by Spearman’s rank correlation; and
analyzing the variance of responses by Kruskal-Wallis test.

Ranking and categorizing of the causes of delay will perform with the equations used by Assaf
and Al-Hejji [1] which was conducted to find the causes of delay in Saudi Arabian construction
projects. The following equations will be used to calculate frequency index (FI), and severity
index (SI) of each factor of delay:

Frequency Index (%) = ∑ a ( Nn )∗100/4 .............. (1)

Severity Index (%) = ∑ a ( Nn )∗100/4 ...................... (2)

Where, ‘a’ is the weight (i.e. 1, 2, 3 or 4) of any response, ‘n’ is the number of respondents, and
‘N’ is the total number of responses in regards of frequency of the individual factor of delay.
Based on the frequency index and its range shown in table 1, each factor will then ranked.

Table 1

Category of frequency and severity of occurrence of delay Index

Index Level (%) Frequency Severity Color

≤ 25 Rare (R) Low (L) Green

≥ 25 to ≤ 50 Sometimes (S) Medium (M) Blue

≥ 50 to ≤ 75 Often (O) Great (G) Yellow

≥ 75 to 100 Always (A) Extreme (E) Red

The different level of frequency and severity will be marked by color to produce various color
zones for identifying the importance of the factors of delay. Figure 1 shows the color map which
is produced by the combination of the category of frequency and severity of specific factor to
define its importance level of delay. This color matrix will formed based on the concept
developed by Mahmid [19]. If the factor falls in the red, yellow, blue, or green zone, it means the

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factor is very high, high, medium, or low, respectively in terms of importance, to cause schedule
overrun.

A VH

O H VH
Frequency

S L W

L M G E
Severity

Figure 1 Color Matrix for classifying level of Importance of Delay Factors

Kruskal-Wallis test is applied to test the difference of responses among the three group of
respondents.

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4. BUDGET BREAK DOWN AND OPERATIONAL CALENDAR
4.1. Budget break down
This research will require budget which is summarized in the following table
Table 2 budget breakdown

No Descriptions Total birr

1 Audio recording tape and Camera 8000

2 Transportation 8000

3 Stationary 5000

4 Printing and binding 2000

5 Laptop Computer 17000

6 Contingency 5000

Total Estimated Budget 45,000

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 4.2. Operational Calendar
Table 3 Operational Calendar

Date

Expected activity February March April May June

week Week week week week

1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4

Gathering of literature information

Proposal writing and

defense

Questioners preparation and Sample

selection

Distribution and collection of

questioners and other data's

Analysis and interpreter of data

Writing of the research and defense

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REFERENCES
[1] Assaf, S.A. and Al-Hejji, S. (2006) Causes of delay in large construction projects.
International Journal of Project Management, 24(4), 349–357.

[2] Kikwasi, G. (2013) Causes and effects of delay and disruptions in construction projects in
Tanzania. Australasian Journal of Construction Economics and Building Conference
Series, 1(2), 5259.

[3] Haseeb, M., Bibi, A. and Rabbani, W. (2011) Problems of projects and effects of delay in the
construction industry of Pakistan. Australian Journal of Business and Management
Research, 1(5), 4150

[4] Pourrostam, T. and Ismail, A. (2011) Significant factors causing and effects of delay in
Iranian construction projects. Australian Journal of Bas. App. Sci., 5(7).

[5] Sambasivan, M. and Soon, Y.W. (2007) Causes and effects of delay in Malaysian
construction industry. International Journal of Project Management, 25(5), 517–526.

[6] Jabeen, H. (2013) Private sector investment decisions in building and construction:
Increasing, managing and transferring risks: The case of Dhaka. Background Paper
prepared for the Global Assessment Report on Disaster Risk Reduction, UN, Geneva,
Switzerland.

[7] Salam, M.A., Staines, H.J., Blackwood, D.J. and Sarkar, S. (2001) Analysis of the
relationships between causes of delay in construction projects in Bangladesh. Proceeding
of 17th Annual ARCOM Conference, 5-7 September. University of Salford, UK, pp.
619–28.

[8] Ahsan, K. and Gunawan, I. (2010) Analysis of cost and schedule performance of
international development projects. International Journal of Project Management, 28(1),
68–78.

[9] Semple, C., Hartman, F.T. and Jergeas, G. (1994) Construction claims and disputes: Causes
and cost/time overruns. Journal of Construction Engineering and Management, 120(4),
785-795.

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[10] Amhel, O., Soyingbe, A. and Odusami, K. (2010) Significant factors causing cost overruns
in telecommunication projects in Nigeria. Journal of Construction in Developing
Countries, 15(2), 49-67.

[11] Abdul-Rahman, H. and Berawi, M. (2006) Delay mitigation in the Malaysian construction
industry. Journal of Construction Engineering Management, 132(2), 125–133.

[12] Gündüz, M., Nielsen, Y., and Özdemir, M. (2013) Quantification of delay factors using the
relative importance index method for construction projects in Turkey. Journal of
Management in Engineering, 29(2), 133–139.

[13] Kazaz, A., Ulubeyli, S. and Tuncbilekli, N.A. (2012) Causes of delay in construction
projects in Turkey. Journal of Civil Engineering and Management, 18(3), 426-435.

[14] Alaghbari, W., Kadir, M.R.A. and Salim, A. (2007) The significant factors causing delay of
building construction projects in Malaysia. Engineering, Construction and Architectural
Management, 14(2), 192–206.

[15] Fugar, F.D.K. and Agyakwah-baah, A.B. (2010) Delay in building construction projects in
Ghana. Australian Journal of Construction Economics and Building, 10(1/2), 103–116.

[16] Long, N., Ogunlana, S., Quang, T. and Lam, K. (2004) Large construction projects in
developing countries: A case study from Vietnam. International Journal of Project
Management, 22(7), 553– 561.

[17] Mohammed, K. and Isah, A. (2012) Causes of delay in Nigeria construction industry.
Interdisciplinary Journal of Construction Research in Business, 4(2), 785–795.

[18] Sharmin A. (2013) Analyzing population distribution and its effect on earthquake loss
estimation in Sylhet, Bangladesh. M.S. thesis, Twente Univ., Netherlands.

[19] Mahamid, I. (2011) Risk matrix for factors affecting time delay in road construction
projects: Owners’ perspective. Engineering, Construction and Architectural Management,
18(6), 609–617.

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